Mom Central: Hot Parenting Products

BOB the Time Manager

I cannot count the number of times I have shouted “Turn off the TV!” to my kids before they finally listen. Now I have BOB the Time Manager, and I don’t have to say a word. Bob is a small device that looks similar to a calculator that monitors and controls the hours your kids spend staring at the set. Simply plug your television, gaming system, or computer into BOB, which then plugs into any electrical outlet. You, the parent, are the “Master User” and the only one who can set and change the hours and time blocks allotted.

Your kids create 4-digit PIN numbers that must be entered before turning on the TV (BOB manages up to 6 users). You set time limits for each child either per day or per week. When that time is used up, the TV, video game or whatever it may be turns off automatically for the rest of the day or week with a 60-second warning of the impending shut-off.

You can also block out specific time periods throughout the day, such as right after school when homework or chores take priority, after you’ve gone to bed when the kids sneak in that extra Internet surfing, or on your night out when the kids have learned to bribe the babysitter to watch the late-night movie. What I like most about BOB is that it not only teaches your kids to budget their fun time but to genuinely appreciate it. We know how easy it is for kids (and admittedly we adults) to veg out in front of the TV the whole afternoon, not getting much out of it except for bug eyes. Knowing they have time restrictions, kids will more carefully select only their favorite programs and then truly enjoy them. It’ll probably take some getting used to…I initially set time limits by the week and my son, without thinking, used it all in one day! He was infuriated when he realized he couldn’t access BOB until the timer reset the following week. Ouch—pretty painful, but he sure learned fast especially since there’s no arguing with BOB.

Click here to buy now!BOB - Screen Time Manager - Manage Your TV Time

Inchbug’s Bumpyname

Even with just one child, it can be difficult to keep track of things, and any mom with more than one knows that even something as simple as a short car ride or the trip to soccer practice can bring with it any number of problems. Well check one of those off your list - no more fighting over which cup or bottle belongs to which kid.  Thanks to Inchbug’s Bumpyname personalized orbit labels, you can solve the problem permanently. The flexible plastic bands stretch to fit around a variety of drink containers, from 4 oz baby bottles to 20 oz sport bottles, and if you’re feeling particularly clever you can even use the labels on items like shampoo, flashlights, or lotion. You can choose from pre-printed names or customize your own, even adding on information like allergies or a phone number to make sure important information is always close at hand.  The bands come in a variety of colors and can be customized with Braille, and are nontoxic, reusable, and dishwasher and microwave safe. Most importantly, though, while only a small detail, these bands solve a number of problems, from making sure your toddler comes home with the same sippy he took to daycare to ensuring that each child takes the right bottle for lunch. Anyone will find a use for these clever tags, and moms will discover that having one less thing to think about will simplify their daily routines. For more information, visit the website at InchBug.com.

Mandy and Andy

Ever wish you had learned a second language as a kid. Even after years of French I think I can only repeat, oui! Give your kids a head start with the Mandy and Andy books, a new bilingual book series written by Florida-based grandfather William J. Adams and illustrated by Philadelphia-based cartoonist Tom Stiglich.

The books feature rhyming stories accompanied by large, colorful drawings. Each book has two sides—one in English, and one in Spanish, so kids can read the story first in English, then flip it over and read it again en Español.

Mandy and Andy are twins who go through bilingual adventures together. In the first book, Hate That Thunder, blonde-pigtailed Mandy hides under her bed during a storm, but eventually confronts her fear of the loud thunder. In the second, Goin’ to the Zoo, the twins spend a day visiting animals at the zoo. In addition to the story, a glossary of English to Spanish words.

Though the rhymes are sometimes clunky and the text is strangely laid out, the stories are fun and the illustrations engaging. It’s simple enough for small children to read, and the vocabulary in the second book is especially  easy to teach kids. If you’re looking for a way to introduce a second language to your kids, the Mandy and Andy books are a fun, easy way to start learning a lifelong skill.

My Heritage Book

Our kids grow up in a country rich in culture, heritage, tradition and religion. Inspired by the diverse fabric of America, author and founder of kidsHeritage, Inc., Deanna Novak has created an amazing, personalized book series to help children learn about, engage and share their ancestries with anothers. My Heritage Book not only helps instill tolerance of others but also promotes a sense of identity about one’s own cultures and traditions.   

My Heritage Book is a unique since it is specifically tailored to your children’s cultural background and helps bring understanding as to why they celebrate the traditions that they do. The book opens with a brief history and some interesting facts from countries all over the world. You can choose up to four countries for your child according to your ethnic background from a list of previously ordered countries. If the country is not present, you can special order it. The book is easy to understand for young readers, with bold, large-print words and lovely watercolor illustrations to accompany the information. Even if your child can’t yet read, he can still enjoy the colorful pictures in the meantime.

Each My Heritage Book is completely original, with your child’s name printed on the first page and throughout, a letter to your child from the purchaser of the book, fun tidbits of information about each country selected, and room for a family tree. The length of the book depends on the number of countries that you request, and there is an equal amount of information provided for each country. The last few pages encourage further discussion of your heritage between you and your child with space to create your family tree and record family traditions. It’s all too easy to disregard previous generations if we don’t take the time to remember them. How fascinating it is to consider the journeys of family members who walked before us!

This book is educational, exclusive, and will give your child a true appreciation of who he is and his special place in this big big world.

Lights, Cameras, Action!

I am always looking for ways to get the whole family involved in activities together, and with the holidays coming up, I can already hear my kids saying “I’m bored!” two days into break. My new solution, Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action for Xbox 360. It’s so easy to use. Even for a video game beginner like myself I was able to set the console up to begin challenging my family with their movie knowledge. You simply plug the receiver into the back of the Xbox console, aim your controller and play. Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action includes more than 1,800 questions and twenty-one different types of games, so it’s fun for everyone in the family to play. The games include  "Credit Roll," a game in which you guess the film based on a list of characters and actors, "Child’s Play," where you guess the name of the film based on a child’s drawing of a film scene, and "Quotables," where you are challenged to finish a famous line from a featured film.

The game comes with four wireless Big Button Pads, so each player has his or her own buzzer. Buzz in with the colored A, B, X, Y buttons to win points based on how quickly you can answer each question. The longer it takes you to answer, the fewer points you are awarded. Some of the questions might be a little more difficult for younger children (they may not know who Humphrey Bogart is) but this is also a great reason to play in teams, involving all generations who have gathered for the holidays. The only problem I noticed was that the points don’t add up from level to level, so if you play for a longer period of time, you’ll have to add your score after each round to determine who wins overall.

I would definitely recommend this as a great holiday gift for any family with an Xbox – or as a gift to yourself, guaranteeing lots of laughs whether you’re playing with friends at a holiday party or your kids after dinner. Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action is available anywhere Xbox games are sold for $59.99, which is a little more then most Xbox games are sold for, but the 4 wireless controllers and the hours of entertainment make it more than worth it. May the force be with you!

Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action

Karito Kids

Right when you think playing with dolls is as old fashioned as collecting coins in today’s video game generation, the Karito Kids collection is popping up everywhere on kids’ holiday and birthday wish lists. Karito Kids is like a United Nations version of the classic American Girl dolls. There are five girls in the club who represent cultures from all over the world. There’s Gia the Italian fashionista, Pita the horse lover from Mexico, Lulu the soccer lover from Kenya, Zoe the bohemian New Yorker, and the brazen Ling from China. Each Karito Kid comes with her own World Citizen Passport and a story that documents each girl’s exciting adventure, giving the reader a glimpse into the culture that she comes from, along with basic conversational words in her native tongue listed in the back of the book. The stories are easy to relate to, and teach kids that people are more alike than different despite ethnic backgrounds and upbringings. Karito Kids also gives your child a chance to participate in the giving by donating a percentage of the purchase price to a cause of their choice organized by the children’s charity, Plan. Karito Kids donates 3% of their profits to Plan, a leading international development organization that now helps over 10 million children around the world.

To see the whole collection or to order, go to www.karitokids.com.

Flattenme Books

Children always love to be the star of the show. They play the hero in their own games and now they can be the hero in their own book!  Books by Flattenme take your child’s imagination and make it come to life with whimsical stories by making personalized storybooks with a picture of your child. The picture you send to FlatteMe is uploaded and imposed into their pre-written and illustrated books.  Your child’s name is also inputted into the story, so they become the main character! 

There are four books to choose from so you can decide with your child which book they want to be the star in. Children and parents can choose from Tuesday Mushroom King, which is about “two wee wood spirits,” Here There Be Pirates, a pirate adventure, The Potty Dance, which helps teach children when to use the potty, and My Little Monster, where a toy monster.  These books are perfect for kids ages 4-7. 

Flattenme books are award winning and have The National Parenting Center 2007 Seal of Approval.  The books are bright, colorful, hardcover, and can be delivered! Parents can write a personalized message to their child in the beginning of the book, which could be the perfect gift for this holiday season.  Books are $33 each and shipping usually takes a week to ten days. Check them out at www.flattenme.com.   

EyeClops Bionic Eye

Remember 5th grade science class when you first used a microscope? The wonder of seeing pre-made slides of various squashed things such as bugs. EyeClops is a cool new educational toy that will bring back the wonder into your own home. It’s a microscope that zooms in 200x, requiring 5 AA batteries and an easy hook-up to the video plug of your television. You just grip the handle and place the big Cyclops-looking eye directly over an object—the smaller the better—which then flashes a super amplified, full color image of it onto your television screen. The handle makes it portable so you can focus the eye on just about anything, but it also makes it slightly harder to control and figure out direction. Kids today are naturally tech-savvy though and your child won’t have any problems getting the hang of it. Soon you’ll both be searching for things to probe and be quite surprised at what you see.

Using EyeClops I found that dimes, which look a shiny silver, actually contain flecks of no less than 4 different colors. Moving onto my wallet, I saw that the signature line of a check was not a plain black line but granular, repeated print of “authorized signature.” A dollar bill showed so many endless patterns and textures, I forgot what I was looking at. EyeClops also comes with a covered cone-like tube to hold small creatures, in which you place the small end onto the eye’s center. There’s an endless list of things to discover. Commonplace items become utterly fascinating because you won’t recognize them, like the carpet, any fabric, your skin, the moles on your skin, even your teeth! It’s completely addictive and 100% fun. Visit www.eyeclops.com for more info.

Rewarding Kids Responsibility Kit

My kids seemed sincere when they promised (well, more accurately, when I told them they had to) set the dinner table every weeknight and take out the trash every Sunday – but I still always feel like I am nagging them to fulfill those promises? The Rewarding Kids Responsibility Kit helps because it lets a piece of paper do the talking for me.

At the heart of the kit is a Family Job chart listing basic household chores including making lunches, helping with meals, watering plants, and feeding pets. Since the surface is erasable (it comes with its own markers and reusable stickers), assignments can be made by the day or the week and rotated frequently by anyone in the house (just be careful you you hand out the erasers to!). Better still, the chart shows kids all the niggling little tasks that it takes to run a household – something they usually fail to notice. The chart can be prominently posted on the wall or the refrigerator, and pointed to when the cries of “I forgot!” or “I can’t do that now, I have to do my homework!” become particularly obnoxious.

Along with the family chart comes an erasable chart for jobs that children can do on their own, such as brushing teeth and picking up toys, and blank charts that can be customized for your household. A booklet gives even more tools including cut-out cards that can be laminated and hung from hooks, lists to be posted inside of cabinets, and another section with list ideas for incentives and rewards. Though the plain typography is decidedly old-fashioned, the message that kids need to pitch in – and need to be reminded constantly – never goes out of date.

Robopanda

Remember just a few years ago when digital pets were just little hand-held devices that beeped when they needed to be digitally fed, and sometimes didn’t utter so much as an appreciative beep in return for your attention? Well, good things times have changed! I recently discovered WowWee’s Robopanda, a toy that doesn’t demandcare, but gives attention to your children actually engaging them in play. He’s a crowd-pleasing panda who gives hugs, holds conversations, shares stories (think Teddy Ruxbin), tells jokes, and even crawls!

Robopanda works without a remote control by responding to sound as well as eight touch sensors on his body. In Training mode, Robopanda interactively explains his features to your child.  Then, in Friend mode, he becomes talkative with jokes and engaging conversation.  In Menu mode, Robopanda tell stories, sings songs, plays games with your child, and even learns tricks to perform later

Once turned on in Friend mode, Robopanda “awakens,” yawns, stretches, and greets his new friend.  He might tell a story about a time he went camping, pausing to ask your child questions along the way, which can be answered by making contact with the touch sensors on specific limbs of Robopanda’s body (“Touch my right paw if you’d eat bugs in the wild; touch my left paw if you’d rather eat bamboo in the wild”).  Scooping Robopanda up off the floor will usually have him exclaiming, “Ooo, where are we going?  I love to fly!” --- but not so fast --- he doesn’t much like being held upside down!  Robopanda can also crawl on all fours and sit up by himself.  While he may be self-sufficient, he’s not too proud to ask for help; when Robopanda can’t seem to sit back up, he starts to cry and ask his friend for a hand!

With Robopanda’s changing facial expressions, active little limbs, and sharp mind, this is one toy that just might avoid being slung into the toy box unforgotten like the last toy you bought! Learn More!